Biomes

This thread will discuss Biomes for the game. I'm hoping that we can start out with 1 or 2 basic biomes to add and then add the others in phases. It could be up to the community to discuss what biomes should be on this list and which one's should be added first, second, and so on.

For each biome, I will discuss the basic features of the biome as a theme to go off of, and that theme could be taken in many different directions. Of course, I always provide my ideas in terms of how a theme could be made to work, but feel free to share your ideas as well.

My ideas: I think that bast can copy this biome off of the original one, just add some tall grass to get seeds from, reduce the tree density, and add some flowers that could be used for basic things like dyes and potions(see my post in the agriculture page). Caves should still occur in this biome, but not too often. mushrooms would have to go for this biome though, but would be implemented in forests.

Forest: This biomes is densely populated with trees. Forests tend to have the most variety of animals and planets. On the forest floor, there are usually wild bushes and other small plants that dot the landscape. This biome should be the easiest to make since trees are already a part of the game, and you can create the forest biome with dense trees, and then go back and add the other features later.

My idea: The easiest way to make this biome is to take the original biome and crank up tree population. everything else is good for now. In a later phase, you might want to come back and add more variety of smaller plants, like maybe some berry bushes for food, briars which damage entities and could be broken and replaced for defensive purposes, and poison ivy, which could be used as a low level poison in limited ways.

My idea: This biome needs to be built from scratch, which is why it's in it's own phase.
cacti can be another farm. It should produce fruit once before it has to be re-planted, but the fruit can turn into multiple seeds. the slow growing cacti must be planted in the dessert. The small shrubbery can be harvested for sticks, and the boulders provide stone for building.

Sandstone cave: Self explanatory, the walls can be mined for sandstone, which would be another building material. gravel and sand could be mixed into the sandstone to give sand for glass and gravel for paths.

My idea: I don't really have much to say about this one. Other than enemy mobs, nothing can survive in these caves, so they are just there for aesthetics and resources, as you can't obtain sand or gravel from the surface.

Phase 2: The water update

surface lakes: small randomly shaped bodies of water that the player can swim through. Slows movement, but should provide a supply of water, and the player should be able to fish in surface lakes. The bigger the lake, the less likely you are to wait a long time to catch fish. The player should have a way to build these as decoration, food supply, and as a defensive mechanism. surface lakes can also occur in caves.

swamp lakes: same function as surface lakes, but the water is stagnate. Has a more potent slow effect yet yeilds more fish than a regular surface lake. The player shouldn't be able to build swamp lakes.

Swamp: this one is self explanatory, swamp lakes surrounded by muddy ground, brownish-green land. large willow trees. Cotton-tails and reeds growing at the edge of the water. Crocodiles swimming in the water, waiting to kill unsuspecting prey.

my ideas: This one would require surface lakes to be implemented, which is why I've put it off a little. The reeds could be used for paper and the cotton-tails could be used to make cotton.

stagnate caves: caves that are periodically filled with water and silt. Muddy walls yeild mud when broken, which can be cooked to make mud bricks, but there should be some clay veins mixed in with the mud, yielding clay, which can be cooked into clay bricks. Both have the same texture but different colors, and clay bricks are much stronger than mud bricks. There should be a way later in the game to filter clay from mud to get additional clay.

I'll just summarize the phases from now on, since it's not really beneficial to plan that far ahead.

Phase 3: the winter phase

this will be the tiaga and tundra update. This update comes later because it's the least necessary compared to the other 3.

for 0, grasslands provide easy room to build while forests provide lots of building materials, allowing the player to have an easier time building. in 1, desserts provide sand for glass and a new structural material called sandstone, along with cacti that can be farmed. 2 introduces water bodies in the map for a rather important aesthetic and food source, mud and clay for new building materials, and a source of cotton for clothes and armor, and paper for things like maps and books.

3 will only provide a few minute resources, such a snow, ice, ...and not much else. This update is purely for aesthetics and to provide a harder biome to survive in. The cold should make players go hungry faster, and there should be more powerful enemies that come out at night. It's harder to farm or fish because water always freezes, so the player has to resort to hunting to survive.

phase 4: the ocean phase

this phase will feature a beech biome and an ocean biome. The ocean will have multiple underwater "floors" where the player can fight dangerous sea monsters, gather fish for food, and gather up exotic plants from the sea floor. The beech will have no caves, but it itself should be an interesting place to visit with it's own resources. More info to come on this if bast implements anything in the other phases.

phase 5: the elevation phase

The phase would focus on the ability to have upper levels and climbable objects like mountains. I think it would also be cool to enable multi-level building construction and the ability to place stairs that transport you between the upper levels. These updates would allow bast to create other more complicated biomes like the mesa and climbable jungle tree maps.

phase 6: the jungle update

this phase implements jungle biomes with climbable jungle trees. This would allow players to build tree-houses. It may or may not be possible to implement this, but I'm putting it in here just in case.

Anyway, that's what I think the order should be, assuming bast will be adding other biomes. Let me know what your ideas are and which biomes you think should go first or last

Syndication

Ape Apps is an independent software development company founded in 2010 by Brandon Stecklein. Over the years, Ape Apps has published over 400 apps and games across various platforms. You can get in touch with Brandon on Twitter or by leaving a post on his wall @bastecklein